You are standing in front of a graphic panel titled “The Sellman Family: One Family, Two Centuries.” To your left is a doorway leading to section four of the exhibition: A New Nation. To your right is a graphic panel and artifact case titled “Who Lived in This House?” Behind you is a staircase leading upstairs. Please note that the staircase and upper floors are closed to visitors.

The panel in front of you includes text, four family portraits, and a background image.

The main text reads:

THE SELLMAN FAMILY
One Family, Two Centuries

The Sellmans were among Maryland’s earliest European settlers. Seven generations of Sellmans lived in this house between 1735 and 1908.

John Sellman (ca. 1645 to 1707) arrived in America in 1658 as an indentured servant from England.

His son, William Sellman (ca. 1689 to 1743) purchased this land in 1729 and built Woodlawn in 1735.

Jonathan Sellman, Jr. (1753 to 1810) served as a major in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. After the war, he was promoted to the rank of general in the Maryland state militia.

Alfred Sellman (1797 to 1854) was a colonel in the Mexican-American War. He built the 1841 extension you are standing in now.

Wesley Sellman (1880 to 1961) and his family were the last Sellmans to live in the house. Unable to support their children on the income the farm provided, they moved to Baltimore around 1908.

Sellman family descendants still live in the area today, including African American family members descended from the family’s slaves.

The panel includes portraits of General Jonathan Sellman, Jr., Colonel Alfred Sellman, Wesley Witwright Sellman, and Elsie Alverta Sellman Pratt (1933 to 1971), who was one of several African American Sellman family descendants who lived in the area.

The background image at the bottom of the panel shows a black-and-white aerial photo of Woodlawn taken in 1929.